Social recommendations like Facebook shares, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account a range of social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, the number of people sharing your information, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a URL has amassed, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, company, or services on social media, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competition, and identify opportunities for engagement. It can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific businesses, products, brands, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to track social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various groups that include market research, marketing professionals, online reputation management (ORM) companies, social marketing agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology providers have developed tools that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to track what customers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their brands so they can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
To learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc, see this article:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress sites for tracking social signals and improving your social media exposure online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s objective is simple … turn red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of over two thousand sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “green”. From these tests, they noticed that their top 10 best performing sites saw an improvement of up to 360% more traffic, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, more traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to convert all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many features to site owners. Below we have listed just some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated information from your WordPress admin bar, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click auto-update functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal server resources use. Reporting is very quickly, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or post type.
- Export Data: You can export data to Excel for further analysis. Data can be exported in tab-delimited and comma-separated file formats, and imported to Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just change all the red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have published about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation
SocialMetricsPro – Tips
A practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This option lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This lets you run SocialMetricsPro on all the websites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Current pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was correct at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and shows you how to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social media campaigns.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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